The present invention relates to controlling cameras and, more particularly, but not exclusively to controlling cameras in sport events.
Numerous popular sport events such as soccer, basketball, cricket, tennis or baseball, are played globally. When played, many of the games are broadcasted, to be shown as live telecasts to spectators, on TV channels, web sites, etc.
Usually, videos of most of the sports events are generated in a substantially manual manner, and require many people to be employed, say cameramen that continuously capture motion pictures of different regions of a court area, as well as of corresponding activities of different players involved in the sports events.
For example, during video filming of a soccer match played on a soccer field, different cameramen may be active in different regions around the field, and continuously capture video images of players running, kicking a ball, etc., during the soccer match. Usually, the cameramen are placed, supervised, and directed by television directors, as known in the art.
Some cameramen may be dedicated to following a ball continuously, as the match progresses.
Specifically and additionally, there may also be a cameraman who is dedicated to identifying and capturing most interesting events during the match—such as a goal, an in/out event, etc., which events are usually of interest to spectators, as well as to officials such as line judges and side judges.
The cameraman who is dedicated to identifying and capturing the most interesting events, may use a camera of higher qualities, say a wider zooming range, a camera with better lenses, etc. However, the quality and timing of capturing of the interesting events depends on the skills, experience, sense of timing, etc., of the dedicated cameraman and/or a director supervising the cameraman, during the sport event's filming.
Thus, the broadcasting of sport events in general, and the identification of events of interest (goals, in/outs, etc.) during sport events, in particular, remain processes that depend on substantially manual management and control of cameras and cameramen.